Dallas doctor Malcolm Perry, who worked on JFK and Oswald, dies at 80

Drs. Malcolm O. Perry and Robert McClelland began their
friendship in July 1958 at Parkland Memorial Hospital, where they
slept on bunk beds and spent hours with their hands in patients -
one clamping off arteries while the other stitched up holes.

It was a time of exhaustion and adrenaline. And it was a time of
history.

Drs. Perry and McClelland were two of the four doctors who
struggled to save a mortally wounded President John F. Kennedy on
Nov. 22, 1963.

Saturday in Tyler, Dr. Perry died at age 80 after a two-year
battle with lung cancer.

Dr. McClelland said his friend, a surgeon and professor at UT
Southwestern Medical Center, rarely spoke of the assassination,
except in his official government testimony. Dr. Malcolm O.
Perry

Even so, Dr. Perry's early account of the president's injuries
gave rise to conspiracy theories that persist today - that the
small wound near Kennedy's Adam's apple could have been an entrance
wound, suggesting a shot from the grassy knoll instead of the
sniper's nest on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository.

Dr. Perry later told the Warren Commission that he believed the
bullet hole was an exit wound, supporting the single-gunman and
magic-bullet theories that were the foundation of the government's
investigation.

"Malcolm never wanted to talk about it," said Dr. McClelland,
who helped Dr. Perry insert a breathing tube in the president's
trachea that November afternoon. "I think he had a bad experience
with the press right after, and I think that may have colored his
lack of willingness to talk."

Drs. Perry and McClelland worked sweltering summers at Parkland
as young men, and later as professors shared an office and
secretary at UT Southwestern Medical School.

"It was a very intense experience taking care of a lot of very
sick patients in an un-air-conditioned hospital," said Dr.
McClelland, 80, who still spends most days teaching young
doctors.

"Dr. Perry was a real help to me, physically, mentally and in
every way other way. He was standing by my side all the time. I'm
not sure I could have made it without him."

Dr. Perry was eating lunch in Parkland's main dining room on
Nov. 22, 1963, when an emergency page came over the hospital's
speaker system. When he picked up the phone, the operator told him
the president had been shot.

By the time the 34-year-old physician arrived in the emergency
room, Kennedy was already there.

He was joined by Drs. Charles J. Carrico, Charles Baxter and
McClelland, who - after Dr. Perry's passing - is the only surviving
member of the historic surgical team.

"Of course, it was an extremely intense experience," Dr.
McClelland said. "It sounds a bit callow, but you can't respond
emotionally in those situations. You go into professional mode. If
you let your emotions sweep you away, I don't think you can do your
work like you should."

Minutes later, after the president was declared dead, the
wide-eyed doctors gathered around a coffeepot at a nearby nurse's
station.

Secret Service agents handed them note pads and asked each of
the physicians to write his impressions of the president's
injuries. Years later, those notes became key evidence for the
Warren Commission's investigation of the assassination.

"We just kind of sat there, and I can't even remember what we
said," Dr. McClelland said. "It was just kind of an astonished
looking at one another - 'Were we really just involved in that? Is
this a nightmare? What just happened?' "

The mind-numbing weekend continued to play out two days later
when Dr. Perry and Dr. McClelland rushed into an emergency room to
find the body of Lee Harvey Oswald after he was shot by nightclub
owner Jack Ruby.

The young doctors took turns massaging the Marine-trained
rifleman's heart while Dr. Tom Shires tried to stop the
bleeding.

Dr. McClelland said Oswald, unlike President Kennedy, had a slim
chance of survival.Doctors were able to stop bleeding from major
arteries deep in the body - the aorta and vena cava - and were
searching for other wounds when his heart gave up.

"Oswald had had so much damage to his heart from the severe
shock that he arrested, and even with open chest massage we
couldn't get his heart started again," Dr. McClelland said. "It was
possible that he could have been salvaged, but not so with the
president."

Dr. McClelland said he and others dealt with Oswald's death in a
more dispassionate way.

"He was the assassin rather than the president, so there wasn't
quite the sadness," he said. "There was a fair amount of general
horror over that weekend."

In time, Dr. McClelland said, the public interest faded and the
men continued with their careers.

Dr. Perry was born Sept. 3, 1929, in Allen and was raised by his
grandfather Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, for whom he was named.

He grew up inspired and intrigued by medicine, earning degrees
from the University of Texas and Southwestern Medical School and
finishing his residency at Parkland in 1962.

"He told me his chief father figure was his grandfather," Dr.
McClelland said. "I think his parents separated about the time he
was born, and for whatever reason, his mother left him in the care
of his grandfather in Allen. And Malcolm worshipped the ground his
grandfather walked on."

Dr. Perry, a private pilot and avid golfer, became a faculty
member at UT Southwestern from 1962 to 1974, serving as professor
and chief of vascular services. He held similar positions at the
University of Washington School of Medicine, Cornell and Vanderbilt
universities. He returned to UT Southwestern in 1996 and retired as
a professor emeritus in 2000.

He is survived by his wife, Jeannine, and their children, Jolene
Perry Yousha and Dr. Malcolm O. Perry III, a urologist in Allen.
After Dr. Perry's cremation, the family plans a private memorial
service.

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